Blueberry/Almond Butter Omelet-- Better Than A PB&J

I don't know why I think fruit has no business being in an omelet. Maybe because I usually opt to make mine spicy rather than sweet, and prefer veggies and meat instead of fruit and nuts. But today, I'm busting down barriers, throwing out my rule book, being bold, and... okay, all I'm doing is making a different kind of omelet.

To commit to this new taste explosion, some tweaks will be required. Obviously, my go-to spices of garlic and onion would be a bad call. So here's what I'm adding instead:

Blueberries and almond butter combined

Ingredients:

• 2 eggs
• splash of coconut milk
• cinnamon
• cardamom
• nutmeg
• dash of vanilla extract
• 1 cup blueberries
• 1 large spoonful crunchy almond butter
• 1 medjool date
• ghee and/or coconut oil for skillet

Directions:

1. Whisk together eggs, coconut milk, and spices to taste
2. Melt a combination of ghee and coconut oil in skillet, only enough to coat the pan and the sides
3. Once skillet is warmed, pour eggs in and swirl around (the swirl is the secret to getting the eggs to cook evenly and thinly)
4. While eggs are cooking, smoosh together (very technical term) blueberries and almond butter. The blueberries will release a lot of juice, so the almond butter will get everything to thicken a little more
5. Chop up medjool date, keep separate
6. Give your eggs a few swirls as they cook to avoid any pockets from forming
7. When the eggs are about 70% done and just starting to peel away from the skillet, add the dates and the blueberry butter mixture
8. Let some of the juice cook off before flipping over (keeps it from being too runny), give it a flip to let everything brown a little on the other side (only for a minute or two), and flip back
9. Fold in half and serve

Almost ready to flip over...

Sure smells promising...

And now that I've taken a couple bites?

Yep. I'm a mad genius.

It tastes like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, only without the crap in the average peanut butter and jelly sandwich! (Peanuts, gluten, excessive sugar, and the chance that you're eating a butt-ton of chemicals too.)

Because it has berries and a medjool date, it's higher in sugars (natural sugars, but nonetheless sugars) than my usual omelets filled with veggies and meats. This will probably be an occasional change-up and not a regular thing.

Conclusion?

YUMMY!!!!!

Talk About Primal!

Do you need a cuteness overload? Go see "Chimpanzee".

Yes, it's a Disney movie, and therefore dripping with hyper-processed sugary sweetness. Doesn't take away from how freakin' cool chimpanzees are! There were so many shots of the little one, Oscar, who's only about 3 years old over the course of the movie, sitting on the jungle floor, examining his surroundings with enormous eyes, and looking smarter (frankly) than most people I know. The movie shows how Oscar and his large extended family go through life; hunting for food, grooming, playing, fending off attacks from rival families, and most hysterically, cracking nuts. Who knew that chimps were capable of shtick comedy? Oscar hasn't quite mastered the technique, so when he has yet to crack one on his own, he grabs a long tree branch, thinking that will be easier to use than his former smaller branch, and proceeds to break the long branch in half... then breaks it again... then figures out that a rock would be a smarter idea... and then proceeds to bash the living snot out of the stump holding the nut in place... and the nutshell is still completely intact. Oscars toes, however...

It's beyond cool to watch them move. I'm jealous of how tough and sure-footed they are. They climb straight up trees and vines like it's nothing, as opposed to me, who thought that the rope in gym class was some kind of torture device. The strength they have in their rotator cuffs is ridiculous. Even Oscar is holding onto a vine with one hand, slowing spinning around, ass over head, staring at the ground.

What really impressed me was how effortlessly they used their surroundings as tools. They made treetop nests/beds in about two minutes, used twigs to eat as many ants as they pleased, and the older chimps made cracking nuts look simple (as opposed to the inexperienced youngsters), often getting them to split with only one attempt.

Chimps are cool, plain and simple.

Food Porn... And I Got Pictures

Writing down my Thai Chicken Soup yesterday made me huuuuuuungry. Fortunately, it's not an expensive soup to make. True to my word, I added more veggies this time around along with ginger zest.

No more talking. Time for food porn.

Chicken in bacon fat with curry, cinnamon, and lime juice

While the sweet potato was in the oven cooking, I got the chicken going. The smell in my kitchen, especially from the cinnamon, was heavenly!

Sweet potato puree with coconut milk, chili sauce, garlic,
onion flakes, curry, and lime juice

A portion of my chopped veggies--
mushrooms and carrots

 The chicken is done cooking and is shredded, sitting on a plate, waiting to be added to the soup. The sweet potato is just out of the oven. Half of it makes its way into my blender, along with its spices and some coconut milk. Pureeing the daylights out of it leads to... you know, I could eat just that and be happy. The two cans of coconut milk and all the other spices are heating up in their big pot now, so it's time to turn my attention to the veggies. I like them crunchy, so I don't have to add these until the end, but it's better to get them chopped up right away. Which reminds me...

Spinach in the soup, cooking down

I should add my spinach! Looks like it's taking over the soup, but spinach cooks down quite a bit.


















After I throw everything into the pot and reduce the heat, I let everything simmer, stirring to prevent the coconut milk from producing a skin, and I get...

Finished product!!
YUMMMMM!!

Ginger root for zest

Leftover ginger root cut up to make... 

Ginger tea! Packs a punch!

Of course, this soup wouldn't be complete if there was no fresh ginger involved, and since ginger root is very inexpensive, I had enough to flavor the soup and cut up the remainder to make some homemade ginger tea.




Just a small pot of water and a dash of honey, cut ginger slices (with as much juice kept in and as much flesh on the ginger exposed to let that juice seep into the water), and a half hour on low heat yields this deliciousness.













Man alive, 
I love food!

Improvised Thai Chicken Soup, Or "Dump Food In A Pot And Cook It"

Lime and coconut were meant to be together. 

I mean, there's a whole song about them! That's fate!

Like peanut butter and jelly (a Paleo nyet-nyet), hot dogs and ketchup (another Paleo nein-nein), pizza and beer (do you see a "Paleo no-no" pattern here?), they are tastes that just fit together so well, one wonders how anything could keep them apart. Unlike the afore-mentioned pairings (anything with a strict double "no" after it), this is Paleo-friendly.

Beware: this was me cooking, tasting as I went, adding what I liked, with no strict measurements and no set outcome expected. I needed to clear my head by focusing on one task for an hour, and this was it (with a yummy result). This is really how I like cooking, though. Sadly, I didn't take any pictures of this process; I cooked this soup during a voluntary and somewhat necessary Communication/Technology Blackout, needing some time free from screens and chatter. I will make this soup again, though, so an update filled with pictures may be in order.

Ingredients:

• 1 pound of chicken breasts
• 1 sweet potato
• 2 cans coconut milk, full fat (like I need to say that)
• a buttload of spices
• chili sauce
• lime juice (duh)
• freshly chopped garlic
• dried onion flakes
• tarragon
• cilantro
• curry powder
• cumin
• turmeric
• cinnamon
• cooking fat for chicken (I used bacon fat)
• Silk Coconut Milk, Original (for sweet potato puree)
• walnuts (for garnish)

Directions-- They're Kinda Annoying:

Chicken:

1. Heat large skillet with a little cooking fat (in my case, bacon fat, but since this is a Thai-inspired soup, ghee wouldn't be totally out of line, nor would coconut oil...)
2. Once sizzling hot, add your chicken
3. Cover with curry powder, cinnamon, and lime juice
4. Once cooked, remove from skillet and pull apart. Keep the shredded chicken on separate plate until you're ready to add it to your soup

Sweet Potato Puree:

1. Preheat oven to 375
2. Skin and cube sweet potato
3. Bake for 20 minutes or until tender
4. Take half of the cubes throw into your blender, and add--
1. generous splash of coconut milk
2. garlic
3. cinnamon
4. lime juice
5. dash of chili sauce
6. curry powder
7. *optional-- chicken broth or stock if you want your soup to be thinner... I didn't...
5. Blend together until it's a nice, thick consistency-- it should be a gorgeous orange color when you're done
6. Cover other half of sweet potato cubes with curry and wait to add to soup

Soup-- Put It All Together:

1. Slowly heat two cans of coconut milk-- no frothing or burning
2. Add as much of each spice as you prefer-- I wanted sweet with a touch of kick-you-in-the-face spicy, so I went heavy with the lime, curry, and chili sauce
3. Add sweet potato puree and mix thoroughly-- color of your soup should be a light orange from the sweet potato and the chili sauce and the curry and the turmeric
4. Add remainder of sweet potato cubes-- if you need to, cut these down to whatever bite-size you like
5. Add shredded chicken and reduce heat to "low"
6. Let simmer for a while, stirring occasionally
7. Once everything has warmed and blended perfectly, turn off heat, fill your bowl with sweet deliciousness, garnish with a handful of walnuts for extra crunch, and enjoy!

Next time I make this, I'll actually head to the market before I start cooking instead of raiding whatever I had in my fridge and cupboards. I'll be sure to add more veggies to it, like baby spinach, mushrooms, and possibly some carrots. I love having nuts with soup for additional textures, so pine nuts may make an appearance too.

I used the brand on the left-- mmmmm
Pay attention to the label-- avoid sugar, soy, and MSG!!

Don't Stop Me Now

Taking a short break from writing. Trying a few new recipes in the interim.

Life sure can hit you all at once, can't it?

In the meantime, here's something shiny to distract you:

The Divine In You

I'm writing this despite certain emotional turmoil... or maybe because of this emotional turmoil... who the hell knows.

This is a topic I've been alluding to over a few different posts: Divinity.

What in the world does Divinity have to do with food? More than you might think...

Read through whatever scriptures or texts that you consider to be meaningful to your life, and I can guarantee that in there somewhere is a mention that you too are capable of Great and Good, that you too are as able as the entity that gives you strength and belief.

You are Divine.

The power that makes your heart beat and your brain whirl and your stomach digest and your muscles move is the same power that makes you act from a place of compassion, think complex philosophies, battle disease, and move mountains. Your Body gives you the opportunity to interact with all that Life has to offer, through your Body's perceptions, your Body's abilities.

Nowadays, people have forgotten that they are Divine. We treat our greatest assets-- namely, our selves-- as dispensable or replaceable, and our bodies have become that belief made physical; we fill our tissues with toxins from redundant and dangerous medicines to master or even punish our bodies for displaying symptoms that serve as a warning that something in our bodies isn't working correctly; we ignore looking for solutions and instead look for instant relief; we consume food we know is bad for us because it's available. We waste away.

My blog and my personal experiences are not the only sources online or in the world of what happens when you start treating you Body, your Heart, your Mind, maybe even your Soul, as elements worthy of respect, nourishment, comfort, and affection. I'm nowhere near a master at this attitude, the last hour and a half's worth of angry snot-tears serving as proof of that. But even when I'm scraping the bottom of my emotional barrel, I still acknowledge that when I think it's pointless to keep going through the motions of pretending like I care about myself, I can avoid shoveling a pizza down my gullet. I can instead choose to heat up some Paleo Thai Chicken Soup and get a mug of tea, thereby putting good fuel into my body, altering my chemistry, making it possible for me to feel better, maybe even sleep well tonight, and maybe wake up tomorrow morning with a brighter outlook.

Food directly influences your ability to feel and function better.

Eating healthy fats, particularly grass-fes meats that have a healthy fat balance (Omega 3 and Omega 6) in them already, is a proven method of reducing or eliminating certain forms of depression. If you become sad or depressed and can't shake it, feeling like everything in your world is causing you pain, feeling like you're not living up to standard that the Divine in you is worth, would you like to prove that thought-process right by hijacking your Body's chances of healing when you eat food that won't help your chemical make-up change, or would you rather eat something that gives you sustenance, gives you another day to make things better? I wish I was above resorting to cliche, but just because it's popular doesn't mean it's wrong: you are what you eat. If you eat good food, you are able to feel and function at your highest capacity. If you have some sense of conscience and aren't preoccupied with feeling miserable all the time, isn't it safe to conclude that you're more likely to interact with Life with something else on your mind than how much your experiences with Life suck?

What would you be able to do if you weren't battling physical, emotional, or mental diseases? How are you worth anything less than that? And what if it became easier if you weren't constantly eating garbage, smothering the Divine in you?

Well, the T and the A and the B and the A and the T and the A and the OMG...

(If the title makes no sense to you at all, watch this music video, and at the 2:45 mark, it'll all become clear...)

Taking a break from my established format of taunting you with yummy-yummy food, I'm instead going to write a quick post about a Tabata workout I did on Friday.

In case you've a.) never heard of Tabata, or b.) don't remember what's involved, here's a breakdown:

Tabata protocol:

• 4 different exercises, repeated twice
• 20 seconds for each exercise at 100% intensity (provided you can do the exercise properly the entire time)
• 10 seconds of rest in between each exercise
• Rotate through each exercise once in order, repeat immediately (1, (10 sec), 2, (10 sec), 3, (10 sec), 4, (10 sec), 1, (10 sec), 2, (10 sec), 3, (10 sec), 4, done)

Four minutes of total ass-kicking. Don't believe me? Give this a try:

Friday's Butt-Whompin':

1. Jackknife w/ Bender Ball exchange
2. Pilates toning-- side leg lifts (right leg 1st round, left leg 2nd round)
3. Push-ups
4. Glute bridge w/ full ROM pulses (never touching the floor)

I started off with about 5 minutes of cardio at about 80% before I did this series and made sure to stretch afterwards. Tabata is more fun for me if each series has a theme to it; this one didn't require me to stand at any point, but rather go through a full circle- on my back---> on one side---> face down---> on my back---> repeat. Sometimes I'll do full-body exercises for all four segments: mountain climbers---> burpees---> walk-out push-ups---> squat w/ curl/press. What makes Tabata fun is that I can tailor it to my body's current status. Since Thursday's Kickboxing class was a challenging one, I needed a chance to focus on getting stiffness out of my lower back and hips.

Tabata is quickly becoming my favorite new exercise format simply because I can do it without any equipment if I need to, can do it any time of day in almost any location (might be hard to do stuff inside my little little car), and can mix it up with different exercises, even if they're exercises I normally hate doing. After all, I'm only doing that dreaded exercise for a total of 40 seconds-- who can't do that? It's very easy to stay motivated with Tabata; the mantra becomes "anybody can do this for 20 seconds". And it's always done to your 100%, not the 100% someone else can do or expects out of you. It gives you the chance to know exactly how hard you can push your body and when you can dial it down a bit. I was surprised at how this mindset of "anybody can do this for 20 seconds" started helping me through harder and longer rounds in Kickboxing. "Anybody can do this (soul-crushing exercise) for one minute!" Turns out, yep, I sure can!

Oh, by the way, have you been able to get the song from the afore-mentioned music video out of your head? Rather catchy, isn't it?